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his approval of his proceedings added, "With respect to the proposed petition to the Queen on the state of the island, I need hardly assure you that when-

it

may reach me I will not fail to lay it before Her Majesty, and that it shall receive my careful consideration before I advise Her Majesty on the answer which should be returned to it."

ever

November 12, 1848.

"To his Excellency Lieutenant-General Sir W. M. Sir Wm. Gorom, No. 270;

Gomm, Governor of Mauritius and Dependen- cies, &c.

"Sir,

"1. The lamentable position in which the inha- bitants of Mauritius now find themselves, each successive week bringing with it an aggravation of distress, from the accumulated engagements taken in reliance upon the present crop, and which, from the impossibility of realizing it unless at a ruinous sacrifice, remain for the most part unpaid, induces them once more to present themselves before your Excellency as humble petitioners for those measures of relief which are known to be within your Excel- lency's power to afford.

"2. The Undersigned beg then respectfully to refer your Excellency to the petition to Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, now in course of signature, a copy of which has been placed in your Excellency's hands by the Committee lately publicly elected, for a general statement of the true position of the Colony, which must already be known to your Excellency; and entering into further detail, we should now respectfully, but most urgently, call your Excellency's attention to the following facts.

3. That the planters of the Colony are, with few exceptions, unable to pay their labourers the considerable amount of arreared wages due to them, from the impossibility of realizing their sugars by sale or otherwise, unless at such a sacrifice as must complete their ruin; there existing, in almost every case, in the planters' possession sufficient sugar to

pay much more than the amount due at the prices ruling in London by the latest advices.

"4. That under these circumstances their pro- perty, canes, or produce are threatened with

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seizure, and have in many instances been seized by the stipendiary magistrates in consequence, and that the contracts with their labourers are threatened to be annulled, from which inevitable disorder must result.

"5. That the tradesmen in town and elsewhere who have furnished supplies, are unpaid from the same causes, and are consequently unable to meet their engagements.

"6. That the continued export of specie for the purpose of remittances to India in payment chiefly

of rice, which is the staff of life to the Colony, has so drained the circulation that money is becoming alarmingly scarce, and that we are threatened with all the misfortunes and calamitous consequences of an insufficient circulating medium for the most ordinary transactions of life.

7. That whilst the value of sugar is reduced by the scarcity of money wherewith to purchase it to so low a standard as only strictly to cover the cost

of production on favoured estates, interest of money

on short loans not exceeding sixty days now rules

at the ruinous rate of 30 to 35 per cent. per an um. "8. That the crop is reduced by the effects of the hurricane experienced in April last, and the subse- quent drought, nearly one-third as compared with last year; causing a falling off, even at the present reduced value of sugar, of at least 1,000,000 dollars, or 200,000l. in the auticipated resources of the

colonists.

9. That if this accumulation of evils is allowed to continue much longer your petitioners humbly but most solemnly represent to your Excellency, Mau- ritius will be involved in one general bankruptcy, when the small credit which the colony now enjoys in India being destroyed, it is impossible to say from whence food is to be provided for its inhabitants ; much less how the large and valuable property now exposed to destruction is ever again to be made productive.

10. Your petitioners beg respectfully to state,

that having maturely reflected on this deplorable state of affairs, and taken the advice of the most experienced amongst the inhabitants, they have con- cluded that there exist at the present moment only two sources from whence relief can be looked for.

"11. The first is the immediate establishment of

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